Movies from Dan Carlin

The Tenth Level

Inspired by the Stanley Milgram obedience research, this TV movie chronicles a psychology professor's study to determine why people, such as the Nazis, were willing to "just follow orders" and do horrible things to others. Professor Stephen Turner leads students to believe that they are applying increasingly painful electric shocks to other subjects when they fail to perform a task correctly, and is alarmed to see how much pain the students can be convinced to inflict "in the name of science."
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Wish someone would replay that VERY powerful (& timely!) TV movie you made about the Milgram Experiment "The Tenth Level"
Movies from Dan Carlin

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America is living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Well, after seeing the latest Captain America movie, I want to play one of their villains.Who could I do? Kang the Conqueror?
Movies from Dan Carlin

Platoon

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Believe it or not, that's what we were aiming for. I wanted to create the same feeling I had after leaving the movie Platoon.
Movies from Dan Carlin

The Final Countdown

During routine manoeuvres near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft-carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
There was a movie, I think they did it in late 1970s or 1908 I think it came out called The Final Countdown. And it’s relatively horrible as a movie goes. But it doesn’t matter. The story is about what if a modern aircraft carrier went back to the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Movies from Dan Carlin

Jaws

When an insatiable great white shark terrorizes the townspeople of Amity Island, the police chief, an oceanographer and a grizzled shark hunter seek to destroy the blood-thirsty beast.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
I loved it and didn't know it was THAT highly regarded.
Movies from Dan Carlin

Field of Dreams

Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
It's why the story concept behind the movie Field of dreams so intrigues me. I'd love to meet my father and grandfather and have us all be 28 years old at the same time.
Movies from Dan Carlin

Passchendaele

Sergeant Michael Dunne fights in the 10th Battalion, AKA The "Fighting Tenth" with the 1st Canadian Division and participated in all major Canadian battles of the war, and set the record for highest number of individual bravery awards for a single battle
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
- What is a good movie about ww1? Just binge listened to “blueprint for Armageddon” and I can’t get enough. - If you find it, let me know. I don't think it's been made yet. The Canadians have a decent one about Passchendaele I think…
Books from Dan Carlin

Nuclear War

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller“In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.”—Wall Street Journal There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Spoke with the fascinating @AnnieJacobsen about her new book "Nuclear War: A Scenario. Believe it or not, talking more about nuclear holocaust is a good thing.
Books from Dan Carlin

The Landmark Herodotus

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus.Cicero called Herodotus "the father of history," and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose, Herodotus's account of the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city sates set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps—with an introduction by Rosalind Thomas, twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, and a new translation by Andrea L. Purvis—The Landmark Herodotus is a stunning edition of the greatest classical work of history ever written.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Oh man...I never remember what I say about this stuff (I usually like different translations for different reasons). But this one is excellent (as are so many of this "landmark" series)
Books from Dan Carlin

The Illustrated Face of Battle

A splendid new edition of a modern classic, illustrated with paintings, prints, engravings, battle plans, and photographs, and featuring a new introduction by the author. Illustrated.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Well, how the John Keegan book "The Face of Battle" fits in with any treatise on "modern warfare" is beyond me.
Books from Dan Carlin

Global Catastrophic Risks

A global catastrophic risk is one with the potential to wreak death and destruction on a global scale. In human history, wars and plagues have done so on more than one occasion, and misguided ideologies and totalitarian regimes have darkened an entire era or a region. Advances in technology are adding dangers of a new kind. It could happen again. In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including asteroid impacts, gamma-ray bursts, Earth-based natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes. This is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the big issues of our time; for students focusing on science, society, technology, and public policy; and for academics, policy-makers, and professionals working in these acutely important fields.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
There was a great chapter in the book "global catastrophic risk" several years ago about AI and the risks associated with it.
Books from Dan Carlin

The Face of War

Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) was a war correspondent for nearly fifty years. From the Spanish Civil War in 1937 through the wars in Central America in the mid-eighties, her candid reports reflected her feelings for people no matter what their political ideologies, and the openness and vulnerability of her conscience. "I wrote very fast, as I had to," she says, "afraid that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures, which were special to this moment and this place." Whether in Java, Finland, the Middle East, or Vietnam, she used the same vigorous approach. Collected here together for the first time, The Face of War is what The New York Times called "a brilliant anti-war book."
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
And her book "The Face of War" is a great read. I remember her saying something like: politicians and generals are the same in every nation (personality-type wise) regardless of the type of political system. Married to Hemingway.
Books from Dan Carlin

Aftermath: The Remnants of War

In riveting and revelatory detail, Aftermath documents the ways in which wars have transformed the terrain of the battlefield into landscapes of memory and enduring terror: in France, where millions of acres of farmland are cordoned off to all but a corps of demolition experts responsible for the undetonated bombs and mines of World War I that are now rising up in fields, gardens, and backyards; in a sixty-square-mile area outside Stalingrad that was a cauldron of destruction in 1941 and is today an endless field of bones; in the Nevada deserts, where America waged a hidden nuclear war against itself in the 1950's, the results of which are only now becoming apparent; in Vietnam, where a nation's effort to remove the physical detritus of war has created psychological and genetic devastation; in Kuwait, where terrifyingly sophisticated warfare was followed by the Sisyphean task of making an uninhabitable desert capable of sustaining life.Aftermath excavates our century's darkest history, revealing that the destruction of the past remains deeply, inextricably embedded in the present.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
That was from Donovan Webster’s book. Well worth your time.
Books from Dan Carlin

The Wizards of Armageddon

This is the untold story of the small group of men who have devised the plans and shaped the policies on how to use the Bomb. The book (first published in 1983) explores the secret world of these strategists of the nuclear age and brings to light a chapter in American political and military history never before revealed.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
It’s great. Also check out his other fantastic book “The Wizards of Armageddon” which details the attempts to get great intelligences together to try to formulate how to deal with these unbelievably powerful weapons.
Books from Dan Carlin

Thunder Go North

In the summer of 1579 Francis Drake and all those aboard the Golden Hind were in peril. The ship was leaking and they were in search of a protected beach to careen the ship to make repairs. They searched the coast and made landfall in what they called a 'Fair and Good Bay', generally thought to be in California. They stacked the treasure they had recently captured from the Spanish onto on this sandy shore, repaired the ship, explored the country, and after a number of weeks they set sail for home. When they returned to England, they became the second expedition to circumnavigate the earth, after Magellan's voyage in 1522, and the first to return with its commander. Thunder Go North unravels the mysteries surrounding Drake's famous voyage and summer sojourn in this bay. Comparing Drake's observations of the Natives' houses, dress, foods, language, and lifeways with ethnographic material collected by early anthropologists, Melissa Darby makes a compelling case that Drake and his crew landed not in California but on the Oregon coast. She also uncovers the details of how an early twentieth-century hoax succeeded in maintaining the California landing theory and silencing contrary evidence. Presented here in an engaging narrative, Darby's research beckons for history to be rewritten.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Anthropologist Melissa Darby’s book “Thunder Go North” is a must for anyone into Sir Francis Drake (and who has doubts about the traditional narrative of where he landed on the North American West Coast). Did he land in Oregon?
Books recommended by Dan Carlin
21 books

21 Best Books About America from 19th Century from Dan Carlin

21 Books recommended by Dan Carlin about the U.S. history in 19th and 20th centuries and its expanding national interests. Dan Carlin is #1 history expert, so make sure to check this immense list of his book recommendations!
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
21 Books recommended by Dan Carlin about the U.S. history in 19th and 20th centuries and its expanding national interests. Dan Carlin is #1 history expert, so make sure to check this immense list of his book recommendations!
Books recommended by Dan Carlin
4 books

Dan Carlin's 4 Best Book Picks About War

Check out these 4 books recommended by Dan Carlin. This is a selection of war-related books he chose for his podcast's episode - 'Hardcore History 8 – Scars of the Great War.'
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Check out these 4 books recommended by Dan Carlin. This is a selection of war-related books he chose for his podcast's episode - 'Hardcore History 8 – Scars of the Great War.'
TV Shows from Dan Carlin

Supernova

An international science conference is held in Australia when Dr. Austin Shepard mysteriously disappears. Dr. Shepard's colleague, Christopher Richardson, and other people are soon faced with the reality of an impending crisis and an attempt to keep the information from the public. While a full-blown supernova does not occur, explosions on the sun cause massive damage in Australia and are shown often in Sydney and in various other cities and countries of the world.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Yeah...at some point. Dang, there's SO much on the to-do list (first I have to finish the Supernova series....)
TV Shows from Dan Carlin

Batman

Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually crime fighting duo Batman and Robin. A secret Batpole in the Wayne mansion leads to the Batcave, where Police Commissioner Gordon often calls with the latest emergency threatening Gotham City. Racing the the scene of the crime in the Batmobile, Batman and Robin must (with the help of their trusty Bat-utility-belt) thwart the efforts of a variety of master criminals, including The Riddler, The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
- What cancelled series do you think deserves another season to tie up loose ends? - Clearly the Adam West Batman series.
TV Shows from Dan Carlin

Filthy Rich

When the patriarch of a mega-rich Southern family, famed for creating a wildly successful Christian television network, dies in a plane crash, his wife and family are stunned to learn that he fathered three illegitimate children, all of whom are written into his will, threatening their family name and fortune.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
I've been watching the Netflix series "filthy rich"...it's just outrageous. It sure seems like powerful people are being totally shielded from this.
TV Shows from Dan Carlin

60 Minutes

America's popular television News magazine in which an ever changing team of CBS News correspondents contribute segments ranging from hard news coverage to politics to lifestyle and pop culture.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
60 Minutes, back in his heyday, was so good at that. As soon as they highlighted a problem, millions of people got angry about it at the same time, and it went away. Even if it didn’t matter to them the day before the show aired.
Music from Dan Carlin

You'll Be Back — Jonathan Groff, Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton

Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
The entire song is wonderful.
Music from Dan Carlin

Kick Out the Jams

Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
That's a personal favorite of mine too. Wayne Kramer and Fred Smith weaving together...awesome.
Countries from Dan Carlin

Ireland

Ireland (Éire Ulster-Scots: Airlann ) is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Geopolitically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially named Ireland), which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. In 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.6 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. As of 2016, 4.8 million live in the Republic of Ireland, and 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland. The geography of Ireland comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. Its lush vegetation is a product of its mild but changeable climate which is free of extremes in temperature. Much of Ireland was woodland until the end of the Middle Ages. Today, woodland makes up about 10% of the island, compared with a European average of over 33%, and most of it is non-native conifer plantations. There are twenty-six extant land mammal species native to Ireland. and winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, although summers are cooler than those in continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant. The earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century AD. The island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the 12th century Norman invasion, England claimed sovereignty. However, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, and was extended during the 18th century. With the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. A war of independence in the early 20th century was followed by the partition of the island, creating the Irish Free State, which became increasingly sovereign over the following decades, and Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s. This subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland, as part of it, did the same. Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the field of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, a strong indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music and the Irish language. The island's culture shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing, and golf.
Dan Carlin
Interviewer, Journalist
Any chance of an episode set in Ireland, Dan? Someday for sure.I was just there in Sept...one of my favorite places on the planet (and swimming...drowning?...in history!)